The Aegean Cargo Sailing celebrates its third year in Summer 2019 with several sailboats manned by participating members crews and many friends of the environment carrying cargoes of local ecological produce between the islands.

We will expand from the previous two summer tours of 2017, when we covered six islands, and 2018 when we made 18 island trips in a single sailboat. In 2019 we will have a number of sailboats carrying healthy, unique, local eco products from Aegean island producers to selected eco minded stores on different islands. In the two previous summers we have found, dozens of producers and products that clearly belong to the sustainable economy: honey, wine, olive oil, soap, dry fruit, aromatic plants, cheese, mastiha, fish in various long shelf life forms, dried fruit, fruit jams and others. We have now received requests for the transport of these products to other islands so that tourists can enjoy a wider variety of ecological island products than is available on their vacation island.

Our vessels rely only on wind propulsion. Apart from the basic sailboat crews we will invite friends of the earth from every continent to join us as crew, helping with the loading and unloading of the products at the island ports. They will be invited to become members of our SAILMED.ORG team, contributing to running the project. They will also have the opportunity to visit the port of call islands, the producers and their facilities, learn of the islands’ natural environment, to cook and taste the local products on land and on board, to learn how to sail if they wish and to help with sailboat manoeuvres. They will occupy in groups of four, sail boats designed to sleep eight passengers or more. So comfort is guaranteed, although they can not expect luxury. On the contrary they will have to contribute a light workload to help run the boat under the orders of experienced captains.

Our project has a twofold purpose: to stimulate the sustainable production of biological and traditional or innovative products by finding markets on other islands, and to encourage the emergence of a Blue Economy by transporting the products by wind power alone.

The sailboats will sail between approximately the same 18 islands as in 2018. The changing winds will determine the details of manoeuvres, but half of the boats will sail clockwise and the other half anticlockwise. Hopefully, a couple of traditional Greek sailboats will join our small Blue Economy fleet of modern sailboats carrying the main cargoes.

For each week of participation in the sailing trip we expect a minimum donation of 1000 Euros. We will help passengers find their way by boat or plane to the island where they board their sailboat. Normally, in a week they will travel to two more islands, sailing twice between the islands, and will be accompanied on visits to producers, natural sites, museums and archaeological sites -- and they will have opportunities to relax over the sea and under the sky.

And they will help revive the battered Greek economy in a sustainable way. No fuel will be used other than for the port approaches as imposed by the law.

Interested participants can visit our site www.sailmed.org and contact us at
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, or tel +30 693 711 0878, and can contribute donations to www.sailmed.org